Fox News anchor Jesse Watters hopes we forget Wildwood, New Jersey. Or he possibly forgot about it.
It was a rally along the Jersey Shore back on May 11, that featured former President Donald Trump awkwardly heaping praise to a fictional, flesh-eating serial killer.
"'Silence of the Lambs' — has anyone ever seen a 'Silence of the Lambs?','" Trump asked.
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"The late great Hannibal Lecter is a wonderful man," Trump told the crowd referring to the cannibal. "He oftentimes would 'have a friend for dinner' — remember the last scene 'Excuse me, I'm about to have a friend for dinner!' and this poor doctor walks by — 'I'm about to have a friend for dinner!'"
But Hannibal Lecter congratulations. The late, great Hannibal Lecter...."
The trajectory of how Trump brought up a madman in a movie from 1991 came after he waxed about immigrants flooding into the country that had been committed.
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“They’re emptying out their mental institutions into the United States, our beautiful country,” Trump said. “And now the prison populations all over the world are down. They don’t want to report that. The mental institution population is down because they’re taking people from insane asylums and from mental institutions — you know what the difference is, right? An insane asylum is a mental institution on steroids.”
And so when the presumptive Republican nominee and minted convict appeared in Washington D.C. on Thursday to speak to the House Republican caucus — he reportedly complimented Hannibal Lecter. Again.
"Apparently, the former president made reference to Hannibal Lecter and said, nice guy, quote, he even had a friend over for dinner," CNN's Jim Acosta reported Wednesday morning. "So we've seen Trump out on the campaign trail praising Hannibal Lecter."
"Apparently, he did it again this morning," he added. "Not sure we fully understand the context of that."
But Watters maintains it was more "fake news".
"We weren't inside the room," said Watters. "But neither was CNN. And that's the point."
He continued: "So we do what journalists do — we went to our sources who were actually there."
He then asked what was asked of the sources: Did Trump really call a flesh-eating serial killer a nice guy?"
Watters answered his own question.
"No. Trump was joking that if he said something about Hannibal Lecter the fake news media would say he was praising him. And CNN took the bait."
Social media users brutally fact-checked Watters.
"TRUMP DID IT ON VIDEO," wrote @AntiToxicPeople.
"They love gaslighting," said @DeathMetalMKF.
"I think they're trying to convince themselves at this point," wrote @Double_Anarchy3.